Didn't Bay do this with TF4, basically as a lever for funding (and time) to do 'Pain and Gain'? I wouldn't be surprised if he was doing the same thing again - after all, it must get boring doing Transformers films all the time when you're a film-maker. (That said Bay's really an auteur... I wouldn't say he gives variety, no matter the film title, but damn he does his thing well!)

I hope they sort it though - I have severe doubts that Transformers films would work out well without Bay's unique visual style and great directorial balance (he was made for these films!).

To be absolutely fair to him though, each movie [since ROTF] has been progressively been better than the previous one. Though with a gem like ROTF that's not really saying much.

Yet the critics say each one has got progressively worse. Bay must have thick skin for that not to irritate him!

(And then you've got people going 'look how amazing and successful Guardians of the Galaxy was based on box office' and 'Even though Age of Extinction was at the top, it performed really badly for that month historically' yet AoE took way more globally and is currently the top box office winner for 2014... Not that I am comparing the two - I personally do think GotG was a much better film.)

Ok, since this is the Transformers 5 forum, I want to throw my hat into the ring. I honestly believe we will get a Bayesque version of the Quintessons here. Why? The "hands" of the creators were seen early in the AoE and were not overly gigantic-clearly shattering the idea that Unicron NOR Primus could be the creators in this installment. The hands resembled the hands of the Fallen, and were located in their funky weird star ships with weird lights.
Honestly, the Quintessons would be very believable since the G1 cartoon (and comics) gave the creator job to the Quintessons ,and why they built Cybertron. Also, Cybertron, according to Bay, was NOT Primus, but a hollowed-out K'nex piece that imploded on itself in DOTM. The Quints would lend themselves also to current movieverse design, which could prove frighteningly well, with the Fallen as a loose model for design ( add the multiple faces).

Fifteen years ago I'd be dead against the idea of Quints. But now I'm basically ready to listen to anything other than Primus.

Though I'd prefer something original over both; after 30-odd years of huge variety the mythos behind Transformers is starting to congeal to a set of boring universal facts; Bay's just the kind of man to stuff a hand grenade in that sort of thing's mouth and drop-kick it off a skyscraper.

Regarding him directing it's a case of "who else?". Paramount want to appeal to the millions of people who went to see the last four, not a few idiots who think knowing Christopher Nolan's name makes them a film expert. And for Bay it gives him more leverage for doing other work; it's basically the same thing Steven Soderbergh does.

Regarding success and reception Bay continues to do good work of utterly confounding doubters (you don't have to go far through any old threads for 2/3/4 to find someone saying Bay got lucky last time and this one would be the disaster) while simultaneously showing most film critics to be old media relics with little to no connection to actual cinemagoers. Most of the ****s watch the things on DVD for a start.

Regarding him directing it's a case of "who else?". Paramount want to appeal to the millions of people who went to see the last four, not a few idiots who think knowing Christopher Nolan's name makes them a film expert.

Oh my god I heart the notion of the Nolans doing a TF film. If only to find out exactly how he'd motivate Optimus Prime without a dead wife to lean on.

Oh my god I heart the notion of the Nolans doing a TF film. If only to find out exactly how he'd motivate Optimus Prime without a dead wife to lean on.

Introduce Elita-1.

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Though I'd prefer something original over both; after 30-odd years of huge variety the mythos behind Transformers is starting to congeal to a set of boring universal facts; Bay's just the kind of man to stuff a hand grenade in that sort of thing's mouth and drop-kick it off a skyscraper.

Yeah, I'd be up for that as well (whilst at the same time acknowledging that for 99.99% of the audience over familiarity wouldn't be a problem and Primus flashbacks could allow for some gonzo insnane imagery). Hmm, no official fiction has ever done the "Merge the Quints and the Primus stories" fan fic thing has it? That would allow for the Epic Universe shattering history (and let's face it, Bay would be all over a villain who wants to destroy reality, it'd be the biggest explosion ever!) but at the same time giving bad guys more on a scale the heroes can interact with.

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Regarding him directing it's a case of "who else?". Paramount want to appeal to the millions of people who went to see the last four, not a few idiots who think knowing Christopher Nolan's name makes them a film expert. And for Bay it gives him more leverage for doing other work; it's basically the same thing Steven Soderbergh does.

Well, unless they're going to have him direct all of them this (ridiculous to my eyes, but you never know, they might pull it off) shared Transformers cinematic Universe is going to have to find fresh blood. And in terms of the main (? whatever they'll be called) film series, if Paramount want it to be a sustainable ongoing concern they'll have to bring in a new director sooner or later if only because Bay isn't immortal (though I suspect he'll ultimately get too expensive proportionally before that).

I can certainly see why Paramount would want more of the same, but the strength of the first Bay film was that it shook up the franchise up and brought it firmly into the Noughties. Someone doing the same for the rapidly approaching twenties wouldn't automatically be a bad thing.

I'll believe a shared film universe when I see it, TBH. It's still just too expensive to do well IMO (hell, Bay needed a ton of money from China to make the last); sounds more like a contingency plan so if/when TF5 flops or Cullen dies or GM hike up the Camaro price they can bring out a fresh cast. Any spin-off would surely still be Earthbound and feature humans heavily for simple budgetary reasons, which would make them basically indistinguishable from the main films.

I'm really not sure there's a market for it, even - part of the reason for the box office of the four so far staying so high is that it's the only transforming robot series in town as a film every couple of years seems to satisfy everyone. The last thing any film studio wants to be doing right now is aping Marvel IMO; superhero films and cinematic universes are hurriedly reaching saturation point and in a couple of years there are going to start being some big reverses. Best that Transformers keeps to its' USP.

The only reason I am stating that we need to see the quints goes back all the way to 2007. This was when Frenzy was introduced as a gleaming, shiny little scrat of a robot. Fast, fluid moves made this guy interesting. Throw in ROTF and the Nemesis encounter. We know grotesque robots can be made with current CGI techniques. DOTM brought on tentacles!! Now for multiple or morphing faces!! The quints also could use their own backstory. In Beast Wars, the Vok was brought in as TF creators, but the Quints are much more believable than the Vok. Primus is credited with the creation of TF's from certain comics and later TV series, but the organic creating the nonorganic thing makes the most sense to me. We can't escape the "hand" we saw in the opening of AoE. It looked completely organic.
There is one other theory that seems to hold some history. The comic universe refers to the "first cause" in the TF universe as being Primacron, a diminuitive, omniscent that created three "uberbeings": Tornatron,Unicron and Primus. Tornatron was defeated by Grimlock, but the last two have remained to the present day. So, Quints? Primus? Unicron or Primacron? All are probable, but it might be the "powers that be ( pun intended)" to decide the identity of the TF creators.
P.S. The "creators" are known to be malevolent, at least according to Bay, so Primus is not really expected since he is a benevolent being.

The Vok were doing their own thing. On screen, all we saw were that they were aliens whom were a bit shady and conducted experiments with life on a cosmic scale. The Beast-era Transfomers are the ancestors of the original Transformers and took the series took elements from the existing cartoon and comic mythos and married them together (and with just one line of dialogue too! "Primus help us all if that thing survived.") and added some innovations of their own (Transformers having proto-forms, Sparks and sketched in a back- drop of political intrigue).

I think there's been discussion with the show runners since and they've aluded to the Vok having a connection to the Swarm from Generation 2 or something.

Heh, fancy the creators in a Bay film being malevolent..! I am shocked! Shocked, I tell you! I am genuinely interested to see what they movie guys come up with. I'd be up for seeing some thing a bit fresh and wouldn't be adverse to Quints either.

I always felt that the "Vok are the Swarm" idea was just a creator going "Yeah, sure, why not?" in response to a convention question. One of the issues of the show is that it becomes very obvious towards the end that no one involved really had any idea what was going on with the aliens and were just making it up as they go along, them being cheerfully prepared to firebomb Earth at the end of season 1 really doesn't make sense in terms of their "Protect the timelines" attitude in their last episode.

Plus, they're clearly the Vorlons.

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I'll believe a shared film universe when I see it, TBH. It's still just too expensive to do well IMO (hell, Bay needed a ton of money from China to make the last); sounds more like a contingency plan so if/when TF5 flops or Cullen dies or GM hike up the Camaro price they can bring out a fresh cast. Any spin-off would surely still be Earthbound and feature humans heavily for simple budgetary reasons, which would make them basically indistinguishable from the main films.

I'm really not sure there's a market for it, even - part of the reason for the box office of the four so far staying so high is that it's the only transforming robot series in town as a film every couple of years seems to satisfy everyone. The last thing any film studio wants to be doing right now is aping Marvel IMO; superhero films and cinematic universes are hurriedly reaching saturation point and in a couple of years there are going to start being some big reverses. Best that Transformers keeps to its' USP.

Yeah, it's depressing how many people seem to have looked at how Marvel managed to do what they did and completely missed the point of how it worked.

I'll believe a shared film universe when I see it, TBH. It's still just too expensive to do well IMO (hell, Bay needed a ton of money from China to make the last); sounds more like a contingency plan so if/when TF5 flops or Cullen dies or GM hike up the Camaro price they can bring out a fresh cast.

I dunno, I think that the success of TF4 already proved that the concept itself is enough to hold water: new human cast, (mostly) new robot cast, another version of their origin (was the cube, then the matrix, then the 'creators'), and it did just fine. I see the idea of a shared film canon as more of a way to have multiple projects in development simultaneously so that Paramount can have a TF brand tentpole every summer. I think that could wear thin very quickly, especially if the running times stay at 2 1/2 hours each.